What is OLC

The Lumina Foundation estimates the number of American adults possessing some college education, but no degree, to hover at about 47 million. CAEL approximates this number to be about 100 million when including adults without any previous college study. This chapter questions whether there are sufficient degree completion programs available in the U.S. to meet current demand. With the U.S. a dismal 19th in the 2015 OECD rankings of college graduation rates, this chapter makes the case that there is more work for American colleges and universities to do to address the gaping disparity between the number of Americans holding four-year degrees and those needed to provide the innovation required to maintain future American economic vitality. Finally, the chapter reviews the blended classroom approach as a highly effective model for serving the adult degree completion population and describes a successful program that was recently created at Long Island University.